


love, without the plummet

by sealestial



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fucking in the Bath, Gentle Sex, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Porn With Plot, Rimming, gratuitous descriptions of Altean bathing chambers, low-key body worship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 05:18:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10073801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sealestial/pseuds/sealestial
Summary: The reveal of Keith's Galra heritage hits him hard and leaves him wondering if Shiro will hate him. Shiro gladly reassures Keith that isn't the case, in multiple ways.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this took me a while to complete, and is the longest thing i've written in an age so as of right now it's mostly unbeta'd. any and all mistakes are mine, all characters portrayed are ages 18+, and i hope you enjoy!

After enduring the trials, after Kolivan began speaking with Allura on the bridge about teludavs and ending an empire, Keith headed to the medbay. The entire trip back he’d been feeling the stinging ache of the wound that sliced downward over his shoulder and collarbone, along with the pain of numerous bruises and scrapes and a possible concussion. He’d had worse. It wasn’t like the trials were the first unfair fight he’d ever been in, Keith grew up bouncing between foster families and orphanages after all, but this fight was the first that had such a large price attached to it.

Brawls with other kids at various homes he was placed in were usually over food, or toys, or for their racist taunting that only came from growing up the bad sort of Texan. Those fights were petty; they were dirty and usually ended up with blood smeared across Keith’s knuckles and dribbling from his nose. Gangly kids with almost no idea how to throw a punch were so, so much different than the Blade of Marmora. The promise of answers when he’d never had any far outweighed the promise of keeping his lunch money.

(In the foster system, kids had to be selfish. Being kind was only met with hunger and remorse; being anything _but_ selfish meant ending up shivering under thin blankets and feeling the clawing sensation of hunger overtake him. He’d gotten better about kindness, about not immediately distrusting people, but the instincts built while he was six and wondering why nobody wanted him were glued to his bones and engraved in his head.)

And he’d found answers. They weren’t what he’d wanted, but they were what the lump of dread in his throat and the clench of anxiety in his stomach had feared. He was Galra. Partially, maybe, but Keith still had _Galra_ blood and fuck if that didn’t make his skin crawl. For the ride back to the castle-ship he’d managed to push it to the back of his mind by telling himself that maybe it was another hallucination. Shiro had told him the suit he’d worn during the trials projected his greatest fears. His greatest desires too, but the Shiro he’d imagined was something _else_ Keith didn’t want to think about; the love of his life calling him selfish and threatening to leave him behind hit harder than he cared to admit.

In the hour after their return, Keith spent the needed time in a healing pod and half-prayed the entire ordeal had been some strange, fake thing the suit had come up with. When the dagger still responded to him willing it to change shape… he couldn’t deny that it wasn’t. Not really. That didn’t mean he had to think about the implications it had, or the way Allura would no longer look him in the eye. He could worry about the team hating him later. Right now, he just wanted to clean off the grime from the trials and the weird sterile scent the healing pod had left on his skin.

Keith had a bundle of clean clothes and a bar of soap he’d found at the space mall tucked under his arm as he stepped out of his room and headed towards the communal showers. He was about halfway down the hall when he ran face-first into pecs of steel and a torso that’d make angels weep. Shiro. He’d literally run into Shiro _and_ dropped his shower stuff. _Fuck._

Normally it’d be great to run into Shiro on the way to the showers. It’d mean the possibility of distractions and wasting a lot of water but ultimately ending up supremely satisfied. Today though—today Keith was different. Apparently, he’d always been different. Today he was Galra and couldn’t bring himself to look at Shiro’s mostly-prosthetic right arm without tasting bile in the back of his throat. Keith was part of the people who’d done that to him—part of the people who’d stolen Shiro for a year and nearly broken him.

Ignoring Shiro’s gentle “Hey,” and avoiding his gaze altogether, the red paladin kneeled and started picking up what he’d dropped. Pants, briefs, shirt, socks, soap, Shiro’s left hand—

Keith blinked, swallowed thickly, and pretended not to notice the proffered hand while he bundled his things back together. He kept his gaze averted even as that same hand carefully cupped his jaw and tilted his face upwards towards Shiro’s own. Now they were both kneeling on the metal floor.

“Keith… you know this doesn’t change anything. Not how I feel about you, or your place as a paladin.” Shiro said earnestly, brushing his thumb over gentle slope of Keith’s cheekbone.

“ _Bullshit_ ,” Keith snapped, though he didn’t pull away, “Allura hates me. _You_ should hate me. Shiro, after what they did to you—how can this not change anything? I’m part Galra. I could turn out to be just as evil as Zarkon!”

Shiro’s gaze, when Keith met it, softened. It combated the sparks of ready-to-ignite rage that could be seen in Keith’s eyes with infinite gentleness. The red paladin saw nothing but acceptance as he looked at his partner and found himself wondering _how_ Shiro could possibly still have so much goodness within him. Even with the nightmares, the flashbacks, the anxiety brought on by Shiro’s PTSD—the black paladin still found it within himself to do things like this; Shiro still found it possible to believe in the inherent goodness of most sentient peoples.

“I could never hate you,” Shiro murmured, white forelock falling in front of his eyes as he leaned closer to Keith. “Being part Galra doesn’t matter. You’re still _you._ You are so many things Keith, but evil has never been one of them. It never _will_ be. Knowing about what’s in your blood doesn’t change the fact that you’re helping to save the universe, or that you really enjoy being the big spoon, or that you pilot like you were born in a cockpit. Whose blood you have doesn’t make a difference—it’s what you do with yourself and your life that does. And,” a soft smile tugged at the corners of Shiro’s mouth, “you’ve chosen to do good.”

Keith’s breath caught in his throat and his eyes burned with unshed tears as he processed Shiro’s words; it was sheer will on his part that they didn’t end up slipping down his cheeks. All at once he wondered what he’d done to deserve someone with so much faith in _him_ , an orphan with a chip on his shoulder and too many reckless impulses.  

Without much warning for either of them Keith gripped the black paladin’s collar with both hands, scrunched his eyes shut then surged forwards, upwards, and clumsily pressed his mouth against Shiro’s. He _had_ to kiss Shiro. It didn’t matter if it was elegant or practiced; Keith just needed to show this absolutely ridiculous man how much he loved him, how much he appreciated him. Because Keith was shitty with words, and because his actions always spoke louder anyway.

The kiss was hard enough to bruise--full of teeth and desperation and love that felt like falling off a cliff. It was Keith’s fingers moving, curling against Shiro’s nape, his nails digging into Shiro’s scalp _just_ hard enough. There might be bruises later. Keith didn’t care. He wished they were standing so he could wrap his legs around Shiro’s waist and press himself as close as possible, but he’d have to make do with pushing their chests flush together and half-climbing into Shiro’s lap. Now Keith could roll his ass down against Shiro’s crotch, could part his lips and angle his head and devour Shiro’s mouth like he’d wanted.

As Keith took full control of the kiss, he could feel Shiro’s hands sliding down over his back, his waist, stopping at his ass to grip and squeeze and make the red paladin inhale sharply. Then Shiro was slowing the movement of Keith’s hips, making his body come to a stand-still. Shiro didn’t shift them, only pulled away from the kiss to pause for a few seconds. Their breaths mingled, mouths almost touching, with Keith at a loss for what Shiro was trying to do.

It was clear a few seconds later when Shiro kissed the corners of Keith’s mouth, his cheeks, and the line of his jaw. He gently sucked on the red paladin’s lower lip, hands sliding to Keith’s hips. This time--this time the kisses were unbearably soft, full of tenderness and tasting like the mint-like toothpaste they all used. They were kisses that banked the fire roaring in Keith’s blood, brought his lust down to a quiet simmer and had him gasping softly against Shiro’s mouth.

This wasn’t desperation. It was love, without the plummet.

And somewhere in the back of his head, he registered that his knees were beginning to ache from pressing against the metal floor while straddling Shiro. But that didn’t matter, not when Keith’s eyes opened to see Shiro looking back at him with infinite tenderness. Untensing his fingers, the shorter man began gently petting the places on Shiro’s nape where there’d most likely be bruises tomorrow; a silent apology for his roughness.

“Did—,“ The black paladin had to breathe for a second, then clear his throat, “Did you still want to take that shower? Because I’d be fine with using that enormous bath we found the other day instead.”

Keith steadfastly ignored the blush he could feel spanning across his cheeks and met Shiro’s eyes. They simply looked at each other for a few seconds, letting half a conversation happen in the silence.

“Yeah, we can do that. You need to get clean too, right?” he replied, beginning to stand. Shiro’s hands slipped away so he wouldn’t fall over while getting up, and Keith used his own to brace himself against Shiro’s arms and push himself to his feet.

 

— — —

 

A place as old and as large as the castle-ship had many rooms that’d been long forgotten after ten thousand years. The ostentatious bathing chamber Keith and Shiro had found a few weeks prior was one of those rooms. As far as they knew, no one else besides the Princess and Coran were aware it existed. Which was almost a shame, if the two of them didn’t usually end up locking the doors and keeping the large bath to themselves.

They’d stopped at Shiro’s room for a change of his clothes before heading to bathe, and entered the room with their hands clasped together. Even though they’d both seen it before the sight was still truly something to behold.

The walls were tiled in a shimmering, opal-like material that glinted in the warm light spilling from various wall sconces. Near the floor the tiles shifted into something more nebulous—a mixture of glass and blue stone that naturally glowed. Small tables lined the walls, each stacked with various bottles of perfumes, lotions, skin products, hair products, and a many other things Keith couldn’t begin to identify. That sort of thing was Lance’s area of expertise.

In the middle of the room, and very clearly built to be a centerpiece that drew the eye, sat the bath. It was large enough to be called a small pool, really, and had been shaped into a downward curve that seamlessly connected to the rest of the floor. The glass and luminescent stone stopped at the water’s edge, leaving only small lights dotting the concave surface. It was a bath meant to literally be slid into. There was barely an edge where the curve of it began, though there were convenient indents just above the water line that could be used for holding some of the aforementioned bottles. (One of the indents also held a half-empty bottle of lube that _definitely_ hadn’t been there ten thousand years ago.)

Shiro let his hand slip out of Keith’s after stepping inside and strode towards one of the tables nearest to the door. It was where they’d left their favorite scents to put in the water, and the table next to it held the stupidly luxurious hair products they only ever used when they visited this particular room.

Keith watched Shiro look over the bottles for a moment before treading lightly over to the lip of the pool. It felt almost wrong to be wearing his boots in here, where they could scuff the strangely beautiful glass-stone flooring, so he toed them off. His socks soon followed, then his belt, his shirt, his pants. By the time Shiro was finished picking out whatever they’d be using in the bath, Keith was testing the water with his foot and clad only in tight red boxer briefs. Though, there wasn’t much point in dipping a toe in since the bath water was always, mysteriously, the perfect temperature.

As Keith pulled his foot from the water he found a now similarly undressed Shiro placing bottles in the indents, and had to take a moment just to admire the generous, well-toned curve of Shiro’s ass. He wanted to palm it, to _squeeze_ , and silently reveled in the fact there was nothing stopping him from doing just that.

Shiro inhaled a little more sharply as Keith trailed his hands down the gentle slope of his spine, then turned when sword-callused fingertips flirted with the top of Shiro’s black briefs. The red paladin watched his partner (lover, best friend) through hooded eyes. A smirk tugged at the edges of his mouth when he felt hands, one metal and one flesh, grip his waistband and _tug._

The red boxer briefs pooled at Keith’s feet and he kicked them carelessly aside while he focused on getting Shiro just as naked. Those hands, soft and large and _warm,_ gripped Keith’s waist as he hastily pulled off the last of Shiro’s clothing. His eyes flickered down to Shiro’s half-hard cock and Keith felt his smirk grow into a smile.

He felt something _else_ grow too, but they’d get to that. Patience yielded focus, right?

They would get in the water soon, but there was something else Keith wanted to do beforehand. Sliding his arms around the taller man’s middle, he moved his hands down to Shiro’s ass and dug his fingertips into the soft skin and _squeezing_ like he’d wanted to earlier.

Shiro groaned quietly in response, resting his chin on the top of Keith’s head for a brief moment. “We should do this _in_ the bath,” he murmured against Keith’s hair.

“Yeah, probably,” the red paladin shrugged, pulling away so he could sit on the barely-there edge of the bathtub before carefully slipping into the water. Shiro wasn’t far behind, only pausing while he sat to pour the contents of one of the bottles into the tub. The gentle, soothing scent of something resembling coconut and cherries enveloped them both, and the water turned a strange shade of lavender-blue. It’d changed to stranger colors in the past, so neither paladin paid it much mind.

Keith immediately dunked himself under the water and stayed there for a few long seconds just to feel the soothing warmth of the bath. When he surfaced, Shiro already had a shampoo bottle in hand. It was a ritual for them at this point, to wash each other’s hair whenever they managed to find time to visit the room. And honestly, there were few things Keith found more relaxing than Shiro’s fingers running through his hair.

Wading closer, Keith rested his forehead against his lover’s chest as Shiro began massaging the overly-luxurious shampoo into his hair. Shiro’s fingers dragged over his scalp, soothing tension from his temples and causing a quiet sigh to slip past Keith’s lips. These were practiced movements born of familiarity and too many hours spent in this exact same place.

The red paladin’s fingertips ghosted over the muscular plane of Shiro’s stomach, stopping to trace each dip and curve he came across. The raised scars that littered Shiro’s got special attention; each one was touched with a quiet reverence. Keith saw them as proof of Shiro’s strength, of his determination to live. Shiro himself didn’t think nearly as highly of them but… Keith would convince him. One day. Despite the war they were in the middle of, they could steal time for such important things.

It didn’t take long to finish their quiet ritual, though Keith had made sure to massage the knots at the base of Shiro’s neck after running conditioner through his hair. They each helped the other rinse, hands lingering and mouths teasing, then Shiro was hoisting Keith up with his hands on the backs of the shorter man’s thighs—and placing him on top of one of the indents on the edge of the bathtub that was meant for sitting on.

Shiro kept to the slow pace he’d set before, despite that initial kiss that’d been edged with desperation. He gently urged Keith’s legs apart so he could get closer, move his hands to Keith’s hips instead of his thighs, then leaned down to kiss the red paladin’s neck, his collarbone.

(Keith pretended not to notice that Shiro spent especially long with his mouth hovering over the new scar that bisected his clavicle. He pretended that the skin wasn’t still sensitive and stretched a little thin, that Shiro hadn’t looked at the scar with something between sorrow and anger, or that it still ached just a bit.)

The red paladin inhaled sharply at the touch, tilted his head back to expose the long line of his throat and buried his fingers in Shiro’s hair. Taking advantage of how he’d shifted, Shiro dragged his mouth upwards—only stopping every now and then to suck bruises onto Keith’s pale skin. They both could feel how Keith’s pulse hammered under Shiro’s lips, how he’d near-silently gasp when Shiro used a little teeth.

His fingers curled more tightly into Shiro’s hair, though not enough to hurt, as a warm metal hand shifted from Keith’s hip to his inner thigh. He felt his cock twitch in anticipation, glanced down and saw Shiro’s own dick was _very_ much interested in what was going on—but the black paladin didn’t continue moving.

Keith was ready to say something, to look up from Shiro’s cock and demand a hand on his own, but the way Shiro looked at him when their gazes met was… _tender._ Heartbreakingly so. Gentle grey eyes flickered from Keith’s new scar to the flushed head of his dick to the way the fingers of the Galra prosthetic pressed against Keith’s thigh. There was something to the contrast between metal and flesh that held Shiro’s gaze.

“Keith—“ the taller man began, his voice nothing more than a breathy whisper, “baby, you’re beautiful.”

Heat rushed to the red paladin’s cheeks—the sincerity and awe in Shiro’s voice catching him off guard. Even after hearing it a hundred times, Keith would never get used to the pure, unadulterated _affection_ that Shiro held for him. It was still so jarring to realize that Shiro loved him unconditionally, that Shiro _came back_ and that Shiro _didn’t care_ about Keith’s Galra blood.

He had to look away after a few seconds, for fear of becoming overwhelmed. While he loved how Shiro looked at him, how Shiro loved him, Keith could still remember the taste of desert dust in his mouth and the deep ache of loneliness that year alone had left instilled within him. It was hard sometimes, to reconcile the fact that Shiro was alive and so, so near with the emptiness of his life in the shack.

A slightly damp metal hand was laid against Keith’s shoulder and the touch jolted him from his thoughts.

“You back with me?” Shiro asked, concern lacing his tone.

“I—yeah. It’s just hard to remember that you’re actually _here_ sometimes. And that somehow you still love me despite the universe throwing a wrench into everything. A _really_ big wrench.” Keith murmured, allowing himself to look up at his partner.

Shiro exhaled with a little huff of laughter. His eyes were still warm.  “We’re prying the wrench out and,” his expression turned serious, “I will never stop loving you, Keith. It’s part of who I am; not even the Galra could take that from me.”

A lump formed in Keith’s throat, one made up of so many things he never knew how to give voice to, his hands cupped Shiro’s face, and their mouths met in the middle. They moved slowly, in synchronization born of intimate familiarity.

Spit slicked lips slid together while Shiro’s hands wandered downward and stroked the insides of Keith’s thighs. One of Shiro’s flesh and blood fingers grazed the side of Keith’s cock, making the shorter man break the kiss to inhale sharply. He’d been ignoring his growing hardness in favor of their conversation, but no longer.

He could feel the length of Shiro’s dick pressing against the inside of his knee and, wanting to give as much as he was going to receive, Keith ghosted a hand down over Shiro’s chest to wrap calloused fingers around his lover.

Because of their proximity, the red paladin could very intimately feel how his touch made Shiro shiver. It never ceased to amaze Keith that he was able to cause such a reaction.

That line of thought was lost as Shiro ran a finger along the underside of his cock, stopping at the head to use a hand to encompass Keith entirely. His grip tightened, relaxed, and then Shiro was twisting his wrist in a hard upward stroke that sent a jolt of heat up Keith’s spine. In response the red paladin gasped and let his head fall forward to rest upon Shiro’s shoulder, fingers tensing around his partner.

They were tucked together now, each stroking the other with steadily increasing intensity. Keith began mouthing at Shiro’s collarbone, sucking at the skin _just_ hard enough to lightly bruise. He added teeth when that didn’t seem to get a reaction out of Shiro, and felt the black paladin’s hips jerk forward when Keith bit down on the hollow of his throat.

When he pulled back, he could see the indent his teeth had left on Shiro’s skin. It made something within him purr in satisfaction; Shiro was _his._ This wonderful, gorgeous, endlessly kind man was _his._ And if Keith ended up smiling against the junction of Shiro’s neck and shoulder, that was his own business.

A gentle wave of pleasure made Keith sigh softly; it was Shiro speeding up the movements of his hand while rubbing the fingertips of his prosthetic over Keith’s entrance. He could feel the slickness of lube on Shiro’s fingers, and figured Shiro must have opened the bottle they’d brought with them into the bath at some point. He wanted to reciprocate more, but one hand could only do so much and the angle made it hard to do much else other than jerk Shiro off just the way he liked it; with alternating pressure, languid strokes, and the teasing of the tip of his cock.

Then his hand was slid off of Shiro entirely as the taller man decided to suddenly grip the underside of Keith’s thighs and haul his legs over broad shoulders. Now nearly folded in half, but not uncomfortable due to the gentle slope of the bath’s edge, Keith was completely exposed with Shiro’s face in between his thighs. His cheeks reddened. The position wasn’t embarrassing, but knowing that Shiro could see _all_ of him made Keith’s heart pound and his dick twitch eagerly.

“ _Shiro—“_ Keith breathed, unable to say anything else before the black paladin’s mouth was on him. It became the spark that ignited the wildfire; Shiro sucking on the rim of Keith’s hole, only barely pressing his tongue inside and fucking him shallowly. The heat pooled in his stomach, burned through his veins, rushed to his head and left him dizzy as Shiro’s tongue delved deeper.

It didn’t take long for Keith to start rocking his hips in time with Shiro’s mouth, for him to begin pressing himself closer—silently urging his lover for more. Keith felt Shiro move under him, and mourned the loss of one of the black paladin’s hands as it was moved away to reach for something else.

Keith heard some soft shuffling before Shiro’s hand returned, but this time with his fingers poised at the shorter man’s entrance. Their gazes met, held, and _stayed_ as Shiro pressed one slick finger inside of Keith.

Shiro kept the infuriatingly slow pace as he gently thrust the one finger in and out, despite the way Keith allowed his head to fall back against the side of the tub with his mouth slightly open. He was already breathing hard, mostly in anticipation, and his ignored cock was weeping with want. Keith was about to complain, but then Shiro was sliding a second finger home and _crooking_ them in a way that had the red paladin gasping.

The stretch was barely there, and the sweet pleasure of the burn only appeared with the third finger Shiro slipped inside him. And it was unfair how Shiro kept angling his fingers just so—in a way that ensured each thrust brushed Keith’s prostate but never pressed. It wasn’t _enough_. It wasn’t the pressure Keith needed.

A wordless growl bubbled up from Keith’s throat and, seemingly, Shiro took the hint. Keith felt the black paladin scissor his fingers, stretch his hole wide, and then pull out entirely. His hole clenched around the sudden emptiness, even while Shiro’s chest rose and fell rapidly and he coated himself with lube.

They adjusted themselves a bit clumsily, ultimately finding their faces a hairsbreadth apart. Shiro’s warm breath ghosted over Keith’s cheeks, and his grey eyes were once again filled with that heart-melting affection. Keith felt loved, felt desired, as Shiro closed the distance between them. Their mouths were damp from the bath, and Keith could taste himself on Shiro’s lips—could suck on Shiro’s bottom lip with the knowledge that said lips had kissed Keith in the most intimate of ways.

When the taller man lined himself up, when Keith felt Shiro at his entrance, the red paladin’s hands shot upward to tangle in Shiro’s hair. He clutched at the black and white strands as Shiro pressed inside inch by delicious inch; he was big enough for that delicious pleasure-pain to shoot through Keith, for Keith to have to fight to keep his hips steady.

At first Shiro went slow. At first, Shiro murmured gentle things in Keith’s ear and kissed his temple and moved with a subtle fluidity. But Shiro was only human, and once his cock thrust into Keith just right—gentleness was harder to find.

Shiro fucked into him at a pace that left Keith seeing stars. They were both panting now, exchanging sloppy kisses that left spit smeared on their chins and half-coherent words of affection scattered between each other’s names. Each thrust was a homecoming, an affirmation, an anchor in reality and the notion that _he loves you he loves you he **loves you.**_

And they felt it build between them, between the sudden jerk of Keith’s hips and the sensual roll of Shiro’s, felt the heat of the wildfire and the familiarity of each other and then—

They hit their high, only to drift back down to each other and the warm cherry-coconut bath water made dirty with come.

Keith and Shiro would always, _always_ come back together.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! if you liked it, please considering leaving a comment. they really help motivate me to write more. ❤️
> 
> my tumblr is [here](https://sealestial.tumblr.com/) if you'd like to talk about those good good shieths


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